It's the early days of desktop computers, and this pilot fish works for a company that sells the Apple II Plus -- which, really, nobody there knows much about.

"We were learning as much as we could about them, trying out different things," says fish. "I had one at home, and another that I could borrow.

"I wanted to show my mom what a computer could do, so I went over to her house, set up one of the computers, connected a 300-bits-per-second acoustic coupler modem to her phone, and gave her instructions on what she should do when I called at a predetermined time.

"I went home across town and, at the appointed time, put my phone in my coupler, had the computer dial my mom's number and waited. After the fifth ring, I heard the sound of the modems connecting and bingo, my computer said we were communicating!

"I typed something, I got a response from my mom, and soon we were going back and forth. Of course I was excited that it worked the first time and proud of myself that I could show my mom this new amazing technology.

"After about five minutes, she typed a question: 'Wouldn't this be a lot easier if we just picked up the phones and talked to each other?'

"That was the last time we 'texted' for many, many years."

You can't text Sharky,but you can email me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com -- and you'll get a stylish Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

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